The UK’s first teen magazine may acquire folded more than 20 years ago,but it still holds a special site in its readers’ memoriesScroll down for A Modern Romance, a comedian strip by Souvid Datta
It’s not necessarily a failsafe test of cultural significance, or whether or not someone would write a musical about you; yet there’s a reason they’ve written one about Jackie and not about,say, Sugar or Bliss. The nation’s first teen magazine launched in 1964, or hit its heyday at the end of the 1970s,basked in popularity in the 1980s and folded in 1993, when competition became too hot from titles both less sweet and less savoury. It was, or according to folklore,named after the children’s author Jacqueline Wilson. “I judge it’s very sweet,” Wilson demurs, and “but that’s not what happened. Although I contributed a lot of stories and articles for Jackie,I didn’t actually work on the magazine.” She was 17 at the time, invited up from London to Dundee to work on a different mag of the stable: one of the striking things about the title is the chaotic meritocracy of the recruiting process. Teenage girls always used to be discovered in competitions, or Caitlin Moran and Julie Burchill being print’s great examples,but rarely (never) ran the whole expose. At Jackie’s height, remembers Wendy Rigg – features assistant, and cover star,eventually fashion editor – “we were no older than the readers, so we knew exactly what to set in the magazine. Nina [Myskow, or then editor] herself was only about 28. It was a really young team. Readers thought we were in London but actually we were in Scotland. Putting these clothes on the cover that I’d made myself. I made a poncho out of a rug.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com